Jury Convicts Suspect Of Reduced Charge

17-year Sentence In Boca Man's Death

John Stites fought with Brian O'Bryon, of Boca Raton, in December 1996, but said it was an alleged accomplice who beat O'Bryon to death with a baseball bat.

On Thursday, a 12-member jury accepted Stites' version of the story, convicting him of third-degree murder after deliberating for nine hours.

Stites, 21, was on trial for first-degree murder. His conviction on the lesser charge saves him from a possible life in prison sentence.

He could receive up to 17 years.

``The amount of time the jury spent deliberating tells me they took this seriously,'' Warner Olds, Stites' attorney, said. ``I wish they had agreed with me 100 percent that he wasn't guilty of anything, but they gave him the lowest murder charge they could.''

After the verdict, Stites winked his eye at his sister and mother sitting in the courtroom's front row and said: ``At least I ain't getting no life in prison. That's all I was worried about.''

Brian O'Bryon, 21, was found beaten to death and floating in a Pompano Beach lake, at 2801 Centerport Circle East, on Dec. 19, 1996.

Pompano Beach police eventually tracked down O'Bryon's estranged wife, Robyn O'Bryon, her boyfriend, David Lanzafame and Stites, when they found a baseball bat with Lanzafame's last name etched on the barrel.

Stites testified at his trial this week that Robyn O'Bryon asked Lanzafame and Stites to rough up her husband because he regularly beat her.

The O'Bryons married on Valentine's Day in 1996 and separated months later.

Lanzafame and Robyn O'Bryon began dating after the couple separated. Investigators found no evidence that Brian O'Bryon ever hit his wife.

Stites, who had met Robin O'Bryon and Lanzafame two months earlier, agreed to help scare Brian O'Bryon in a meeting allegedly arranged by Robyn O'Bryon.

Stites testified that on Dec. 17, 1996, he and Lanzafame waited at the commerce park for Brian O'Bryon, then Stites attacked him as he and Robyn O'Bryon walked along the lake.

After briefly wrestling with Brian O'Bryon, Stites said he turned to walk away when he heard Lanzafame hitting Brian O'Bryon with the bat. When Lanzafame was done, Stites said he only helped toss the body in the lake.